In his other hand, the tip of the massive war-blade named "Extinction" trembled faintly, letting out a thin, bloodthirsty hum—
a sound that seemed to echo the heartbeat-like, low droning coming from beneath the pile of fallen rock.
"Weak… but purer."
Corvus Glaive's voice was low and even, carrying a strange note of satisfaction. "The chaotic shockwave and the quake in the earth acted like a forging hammer… it shook off the impurities and exposed the 'truth' at the core."
The tip of Extinction traced lightly across a piece of rock.
Where it passed, it left behind a shallow, pale-white groove, and the faintest bluish light seeped up from inside that scar.
Another slender, agile figure slid out of the darkness behind Corvus. The trident in her hand was lifting slowly, the tip glowing with a cold radiance like frozen aurora, illuminating her knife-sharp features—
Proxima Midnight.
"Looks like that 'gift' from his kick worked better than we expected."
Her tone still carried mockery, but her eyes were deadly serious.
The light from the weapon in her hand—the "Night Spear"—was faintly resisting, or perhaps being drawn toward, that even purer blue glow under the rock pile.
"But the structure down here is even more unstable now. Any crude move could trigger a full collapse, bury the scepter even deeper…
or draw the wrong kind of attention."
She shot a meaningful glance toward the darkness of the tunnel's depths, where the entrance gaped like the throat of some great beast.
Corvus nodded silently.
Instead of forcing the rocks aside with Extinction, he stretched out his armored hand, palm downward, fingers slightly flexed, as if performing some delicate sensing operation.
A very faint, almost transparent ripple of energy spread from his palm like water, slowly seeping into the cracks between the fallen stones.
Bzzz… bzzz… bzzz—SHH!
The ghostly blue light beneath the rubble flared for an instant as if irritated.
A cold, corrosive current of energy, like a startled viper, suddenly rushed upward along the path of Corvus's probing wave and bit back at him.
Ssshh—!
A thin layer of ghostly blue ice crystal instantly formed over the armored palm of his hand, radiating a chill so intense it felt like it could freeze his very bone marrow straight through the metal.
"Hmph."
Corvus snorted, his arm giving a sharp jolt. Dark-gold armor erupted with a powerful counterforce wave, blasting the clinging blue ice crystal into shards.
The fragments scattered and peppered the nearby rock wall, ringing out with crisp "ding-ding-dang-dang" chimes like metal striking metal—
a clear sign of just how hard they were.
"…The gem's energy defense field… is in self-protection mode?"
Proxima's eyes grew even more wary, the light on her Night Spear burning brighter.
Corvus lowered his arm and looked at the eroded patches on his gauntlet, as if something had scored delicate grooves across it with a highly corrosive acid.
"The core radiation has intensified.
It seems to be absorbing… the surrounding negative emotions and energy fluctuations while it sleeps."
His green eyes turned toward the deeper darkness, where distant booms of fighting and eruptions of power faintly echoed.
"These rats and trash underground… all the darkness and destruction they spawn… have become its nourishment."
"Then let's… use that nourishment."
Proxima let out a cold laugh. "Let them squeeze out the last bit of their value and open the way for us."
The light at her spear tip condensed to a sharp point.
An extremely obscure guiding signal launched from it, sinking into the darkness like a drop of ink in a black pool—
spreading outward in utter silence.
(End of Chapter)
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